Best guitar for playing in a jam band

Around 500USD. No preference on brand, something with a nice bright sound but also capable of versatility. It will be along the lines of Grateful Dead, Phish and stuff like that. I'll probably be writing music more along the lines of Phish.

If you want some good HSH guitars TS, look at Ibanez's, within your budget of course. No disregard to HSS strats, they're excellent, but in my own opinion not as versatile. Well, of course it depends, but in a blunt way of saying it I find HSH guitars to be mroe versatile...

Oh, are you willing to go used? You might be able to find a hell of a deal.

Any guitar will work.But, Les Paul>Stratocaster. Go out and try every guitar you can. Taking the advise of any bozo over the internet(including me) and buying a guitar sight unseen to me is insane. $500.00 is alot of money to most people so why just toss caution to the wind?

You're definitely going to want something with humbuckers. Jerry played an SG in the early days of the Dead, and got his custom Tiger guitar with humbuckers (if I remember right). Duane Allman used SGs and Les Pauls. I think your best bet would be trying out something from Epiphone/Gibson and seeing what you like.

just cause you said your going to be playing stuff like phish so why nottake the heart of phish with you lol

God I wish I could afford a Languedoc..

If you're actually looking to sound like Trey, at least humbuckers. But its a lot in his entire rig too. Well, his fingers too. Anyway, he plays a hollowbody like that one. On your budget, Ibanez has some semi hollow dual humbucker guitars. Shecter has a C1 model thats SH DHB. I recall Dean..

If you're actually looking to sound like Trey, at least humbuckers. But its a lot in his entire rig too. Well, his fingers too. Anyway, he plays a hollowbody like that one. On your budget, Ibanez has some semi hollow dual humbucker guitars. Shecter has a C1 model thats SH DHB. I recall Dean..

Go with a HSH. You just can't go wrong with a decent Ibanez. Depending on your price range, you could go with an RG350DX or S470DXQM for a lower price range or maybe a RG3550MZ or S5470F for a higher. Massive ranges with these guitars.

les paul is probably the most versatile guitar out there. Imo, moreso than a H/S/S or H/S/H or a S/S of a tele, mainly because of the independent pickup controls and the ability to mix the two with the middle position